


Brilliance

by BlushingDragon



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: (the holy trinity), Blue Hawke, Brief Bianca Davri, Cavity-Grade Sweetness & Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Love Letters, Mutual Pining, Not Much Story Missions but Lots of Feelings, Overprotective Varric, Rated for swearing, Slow Burn, Varric's Brief Crush on Bethany mention, they're both romantic saps that can't say a damn thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-05-14 05:59:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14763959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlushingDragon/pseuds/BlushingDragon
Summary: It was only because she had never been good at making friends before Varric, she reasoned, and he’d claimed and defended the title of best friend so valiantly that it made her head spin.It was only friendship, Delilah told herself. The best friendship in the entire world.aka, the "it takes ten years for them to kiss" slow burn





	1. Happy To Be Stuck With You

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 title from "Stuck With You" by Huey Lewis & The News  
> yeah i've got a four hour playlist for these dorks i use for inspiration

It started by sneaking up on Delilah over the course of the first year. At first, it was a quiet thing, like the sky turning from blue to violet in a sunset. She forcefully ignored the increasing touches—longer, gentler, more often—and even Varric’s habit of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her as her arrows and his bolts rained death upon countless spiders and the like. With the height difference it was more like shoulder-to-ribs anyhow, and Delilah tried to ignore the swooping feeling in her stomach when he fits perfectly beside her. Swooping was bad, Hawke figured, and tried to forget about it as quickly as possible. It was only because she had never been good at making friends before Varric, she reasoned, and he’d claimed and defended the title of best friend so valiantly that it made her head spin.   
  
It was only friendship, Delilah told herself. The best friendship in the entire world.   
  
In Kirkwall, the one city in the world most lacking in friends, Varric was a blessing. He used his supposed omnipotence to give the Hawkes opportunities rather than take over the city from within, something that Delilah fully believed him capable of. Perhaps not inclined towards, she thought, given practically every characteristic of his, but definitely capable. But Varric would brush off the importance of his actions, insisting that it was no trouble and that he was only happy to open doors for her and her people. Hawke could never decide which half of that claim was a lie and which was the truth.   
  
As if she didn’t have enough of that sort of skullduggery going on in her life. Delilah prided herself on being exactly what everyone thought she was: a confident and courteous archer with quick fingers and a quicker tongue, a business-smart smuggler and a virtuous vigilante. She could make her eyes sparkle and her lips curve into something sweet enough to poison someone, showing off just a hint of the canine teeth that her hound Precious could be jealous of. The eldest daughter of an apostate could lie like no one’s business, and she performed with her mask on every single night for Athenril to keep her suitably impressed, for Bethany to keep her from worrying, for Mother to keep her from asking too many questions such as how are you and the like.   
  
However, sometimes her mask slipped, like when she stood on the edge of the Wounded Coast and the breeze caressed her cheek like a lover that she’d never had, and turned her back into the hopeful farmer’s hand that had grown up into the most successful game hunter in Lothering by the age of sixteen. She ignored the sharp-eyed glances that Varric shot her when she got wistful like that, just like she ignored the circles growing under her eyes as she and Bethany scraped fifty sovereigns together. But deep down, in the parts of her that stared at Uncle Gamlen’s ceiling at night and sat on the edge of Sundermount’s cliffs just to think, Delilah knew that Varric knew that she was still fool enough to want things that she couldn’t have. She didn’t quite know how she felt about that, but she figured that if she trusted him with Bethie, her little sister and his Sunshine, then Delilah could trust Varric with just about anything.   
  
It was only after they had returned from the Deep Roads that Delilah realized that she had never asked Varric what he thought of bringing Bethany with them on that ill-fated expedition. She was just as sharp-eyed as the dwarf on his best days, so she hadn’t missed his proud affection for Bethany. Varric said he liked being a surfacer because he was near the sun, and he called Bethany ‘Sunshine’; Delilah would’ve had to be blind not to see that he thought the world of her little sister.   
  
After the expedition and a few days after aimlessly wandering the Wounded Coast just to do something, Hawke found herself numbly walking through Lowtown only to stumble into the Hanged Man like she’d already been there for hours. Had she been a little more cognisant, she would’ve been amused that with only a shared look with Corff, Norah was scurrying to the back steps.   
  
“Set me up with your best, Corff. I’m in for a long night.”   
  
The bartender didn’t move, and she saw his eyes flick toward the stairs. Impatiently, Delilah set three silver on the bar stiffly. He eyed the money, but still refused to budge. She was about to up the ante when a familiar voice reached her ears.   
  
“Hawke, you know I’ve got better than this swill upstairs,” drawled Varric Tethras, a kind smile painting tiny lines by his eyes.   
  
He reached for her elbow and lead her across the floor, disregarding her sputtering nonsense. Delilah couldn’t formulate just what she meant to say, but she knew that she couldn’t take Varric’s kindness anymore, not when she had killed her own sister right in front of him.   
  
They were half-way up the stairs when Delilah tried to plant her feet firmly in protest, but Varric only looked her in the eyes—standing on two steps above her gave him that advantage—and for as long as those amber eyes were watching her, she moved with easy compliance, too tired for avoidance, too tired for resistance, too tired to think.   
  
“It’s my fault,” she tells him, hours later, laying on her side on his bed. The firelight silhouettes him too well where he sits at the long table, and there’s a mostly empty bottle hanging from her loose grip because she needs to hold on to something while Varric and his broad, lovely, calloused hands are across the room.   
  
“Only if it’s mine, too,” he says to her, his voice rough with the lateness of the evening and despite the fire and her leathers, Hawke feels a shiver run down her spine. He’s got her at an impasse, and so she raises the bottle in a tired, slurry, smiling salute.   


  
  
Ten months later, they’re drinking in the Hanged Man again—Hawke slumped over on the long table in Varric’s rooms and the dwarf himself gesturing with his cup as he talks—when Delilah mutters something unintelligible. She talks into her glass often, keeping all her best one-liners to herself like the greedy scoundrel she is, but tonight, her hair sways like Ferelden wheat in a breeze and obscures her face. Varric, wordsmith as he is, can read the pain in the lines of her shoulders.   
  
“Hawke?” He puts his cup down, and places a hand on her arm.   
  
She tips her head back, and Varric is surprised to see a faint wet track running down her cheek.   
  
“It would’ve worked on me,” she enunciates clearer now. “The copper marigolds,” she adds, as if to clarify.   
  
A stuttering laugh leaves Varric’s throat without his permission. “I’m sorry to tell you, Hawke,” he says through his laughter, “but our dear Guard-Captain is… whatever the battering ram version of a kept woman is.”   
  
Thankfully, Hawke still has the focus to slap his arm for that. “Aveline’s not my type, you silly dwarf. It’s that she gave a gift, and there were meanings attached to it,” explained Delilah, pushing her cup away so as to make animated gestures with her hands.   
  
“It’s something I would do, honestly,” she admits. “I like those qualities in people too, you know; tough and—oh, what’d she say— aging well and a soft sort of kindness.” Hawke’s words begin to slur a little bit, and a loose, dreamy smile starts curving the edges of her lips. She looks younger, more relaxed than she’d ever been since the Deep Roads, but the faint wistfulness in her tone leaves Varric with uneven footing.   
  
“If you ever go a-courting, Hawke, make sure to find something less ugly than those specific marigolds,” he says, trying to dislodge that damn wistfulness with some kind of humor. He ends up tacking on a laugh at the end to disguise the twinge in his gut at the thought of Hawke on the arm of some Hightown ponce.   
  
Delilah nods, but her green eyes are hazy, almost out of focus. She continues her murmuring, “I’d use brass. No, no, bronze: tougher than gold, but still shines like the sun. And there would be… be…” She trails off, but then her eyes sharpen suddenly, as if spotting something from miles off.   
  
“Arrows,” she declares. “be-because I’ve got arrows, but arrows are sharp, too. Sharp like brilliant and sharp like dangerous. I think it’d be brilliant.”   
  
She tries to stand up, although where she’d go is a complete mystery to him. Her first step is wobbly, and Varric makes sure that when she takes the third step, the one that has her pitching forward, his arms are ready to direct the wayward human’s stumbling.   
  
Her green eyes are half-lidded when she looks down at him, and she murmurs, “I think you’re brilliant, Varric. You’re my favorite.”   
  
Shaking his head at her, Varric smiles, just a little. There’s no way she can walk all the way back to Hightown like this. Hawke’s stayed in his rooms a few times before, after getting a little too far down the bottle without someone to walk her home, but this is the first time that he’s felt a warm, possessive feeling at the thought of Hawke waking up in his bed instead of her own.   
  
“I think we’ve both had a little too much,” he declares to the room at large, and Delilah only hums noncommittally in reply.   
  
Waking up the next morning is an affair with tangled limbs, with Hawke grinning through the hangover and Varric trying to ask subtle questions about how much she remembers. She says that it’s fuzzy, and Varric immediately follows up with a line about the chest hair. It keeps Hawke laughing, at least, and it’s only as she’s walking away when the realization hits him like one of Merrill’s lighting storms. It doesn’t come in words, not at first, but Varric’s next breath leaves him in a rush and he’s feeling lightheaded with Hawke’s laughter echoing in his ears.   
  
And that’s before he remembers that Bianca is going to be in town today.   
  
Well, shit.   
  
Thankfully, somehow, Varric manages to slip away from Hawke and to talk Bianca down enough times throughout the day so that the two women never actually meet, nor are they troubled by any of his abrupt departures. He waits until he’s alone in his rooms after having just seen Bianca off at the docks--a situation that turned “seeing off” into “stood nearish to the docks and just happened to glance her way when she was nodding along to some other conversation”--that Varric lets out a deep exhale.   
  
That is also the moment he learns he’s not alone in his rooms.   
  
“So that was Bianca, at the docks,” says Hawke. She’s leaning against the wall under the window, and Varric never knows just how she does that with the bow and quiver on her back. She’s all sharp angles and arched eyebrows and long, long legs right now—definitely a “Hawke” and not a “Delilah” or a “Waffles” kind of moment—but Varric can’t actually tell if she’s angry yet. Playing it by ear would be the wisest course of action.   
  
“That’s her,” he agrees. “She was in town for some kind of Merchants’ Guild conference, I think, and we got up to chatting about good old days, when we had the time.” Best to downplay it, as much as he can with his carefully cultivated air of mystery biting him in the ass right now.   
  
She laughs here, a low sound that barely escapes her lips to reach him. “Ah, the Merchants’ Guild. Once again they thwart my devious plans to get to the truth of you. It’s almost as if they’re doing it on purpose.”   
  
Hawke doesn’t buy his bullshit—she never does, bless her scoundrel’s heart—but she isn’t in a pushing kind of mood today, thank his absent Ancestors.   
  
Varric scoops up his crossbow (that he can’t think off as Bianca right now without a major headache,) and raises his eyebrows at Hawke, whose green gaze slid down to look at her fidgeting hands. With a start, he sees that there are tiny lines growing out of the corners of her eyes. Being with Hawke, with Delilah, is simultaneously so easily natural and yet constantly surprising, to the point that the passage of time had almost seemed suspended. Hawke was looking rougher around the edges, but to Varric, it felt as if they’d known each other for eternities but somehow only met mere months ago. It was the first time he realised he’d  _ never _ grow tired of her.   
  
“Where are we off to tonight, Hawke?” Varric asks, and the tight spot in his chest eases as he sees Delilah release the tension in her stance.   
  
“Back on the trail of a nasty maleficar, my trusty dwarf.”

* * *

 

The foundry district hurtles up to first place on Hawke’s list of Least Favorite Locations in Kirkwall that night. Delilah spends every moment that she can outside of the city afterwards, sitting on the coast like she’s the one looking for a ship instead of Bela.

Even Varric finds excuses to avoid Lowtown for the next few days, and when puttering around the Merchant’s Guild assembly hall gets too agonizing, he ducks into Hawke’s estate. He can’t pick out the words yet as to why, but even just checking up on the building soothes his nerves. It isn’t until the first time that Varric drops by while Delilah is home that he realized that six days out of the past seven, he’s greeted the empty front hall of the Amell-Hawke Estate with a tired smile and a friendly pat on the marble columns.

She’s sitting at her writing desk in the front parlor when he arrives this time, and practically falls out of the chair when Precious starts barking happily. Varric gives the old girl a few courtesy scritches behind the ear, but his gaze never quite leaves Delilah and the way she’s clutching a few letters in one hand and—  _ shit _ .

“At least now I can tell Aveline who was reading my mail,” she says. A weak, scratchy laugh is what eases his nerves as she shakes her head at him, her green eyes bright for the first time in almost two months. 

“As if I’d let anyone else go through your mail and solve your problems for you, Hawke,” he drawls, and for a hot second Varric worries that may have came out as  _ too  _ fond, but all Delilah replies with is a smile and an invitation to stay for dinner. Varric’s deflections come out sounding like  _ sure, why not,  _ and soon they’re laughing together over some stolen wine and his spare Wicked Grace deck. 

They don’t see the time passing until its a near-pitch black night outside, and Hawke offers with no small amount of humor to walk him home to the Hanged Man.

“To start paying off my tab,” she says. 

There’s a hundred tricky ways to respond to that, and a few that won’t betray the tight knot he feels at the thought of Hawke pulling her Kirkwall roots back up and leaving. He ends up choosing a innocuous quip, “Don’t fool yourself, Hawke, you’ll always be the one buying drinks at the Hanged Man,” but he ends up wanting to kick himself. That old look—The Wistful Look, with capitals and everything in the safety of his own head—flashes in her eyes, and the flush from the red wine plants a traitorous thought in his head, one that sounds like Delilah saying “ _ You’re my favorite.” _

Years and years later, with a couple more laugh lines, a handful more scars, and too many grey hairs, Delilah told him that her exact thought right then was  _ don’t let me leave _ . He said that sounded like something out of  _ Swords and Shields _ , and she slapped him in the arm.


	2. To Make You Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Gone, Gone, Gone" by Phillip Phillips  
> i really wasn't kidding about the playlist guys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the overwhelming positive reception so far everyone! (Three comments in three days? whaaaaaaat)

Naturally, everything else fell to pieces the next day, one bloody and sharp-edged piece at a time.

The ire that sparked at being awoken by Isabela and Aveline squabbling in her foyer was buried immediately because Delilah was Hawke and had a duty to help her friends, so she, Aveline, Bela and Fenris went chasing down the lead on Castillon’s relic first thing in the morning. Hawke brushed off the gnawing in her stomach by packing a few more stamina potions than normal, and followed Isabela’s lead.

The entire time, she wanted to send for Varric and make Fenris or Aveline go home. Three melee fighters left her hanging-back position weaker than normal, and when Isabela’s heavy choice landed in Hawke’s hands, she had two furious warriors telling her to choose the Qunari, while the voice in her head that sounded like Beth insisted she choose Isabela. _Save her like you should’ve saved me,_ said Bethany, and in the wavy dark hair and earnest golden near-brown eyes and sharp audacity to _live_ , Delilah saw the sister she lost and a sister she had gained.  Hawke let Isabela leave, Tome of Koslun in hand, and with two glowering warriors on her shoulders, Delilah couldn’t help but think that Varric would've understood.

That thought brought her to insist that they stop to pick up Varric on their way to the Arishok. Aveline rolled her eyes and Fenris made a grunt of what might've been amusement, but they did wait while Delilah barged into the Hanged Man and dragged her favourite dwarf out with her. It might’ve been wishful thinking, but Delilah would have sworn that the lines beside his warm eyes deepened with worry and he might’ve held her hand a while longer than necessary when she was a bit too enthusiastic about dragging him out of the bar.

Delilah filled Varric in on the details as they walked, and he groaned long and loud about how he’d forgotten his notebook in the rush and the details would all be muddled by the time he could get them down on paper. That got a chuckle from Hawke, and she could see the worry lines ease slightly when she let it out. Their short reprieve in levity didn’t last very long, however, and while she was loathe to let Varric out of her sight again, the rumble in the Qunari compound was going to be Aveline’s show, and so Hawke promised to meet back up as soon as they could.

It felt so much like a good-bye, like smoke rising from the ruins of Lothering, that Delilah clenched her fists to stop her throat from closing up.

Later, Hawke’s memory of the conversation with the Arishok had blurred in flash of anger: anger at Aveline, anger at herself, anger at Kirkwall for being such a hellhole that _this_ had come down on it. She rushed out of the compound with the same itch under her feet that carried her over Fereldan countrysides for fourteen years, the same fire under heels that had for better or worse delivered her from Blighted lands. Once Delilah started to run, it got hard to stop, and fighting through the entire city held her focus in the same part of her brain that had kept her running like death would meet her if she slowed.

“Hawke. _Hawke._ Delilah!”

With a jerk, she looked at Varric, eyes wide and the sudden realization that she was panting for breath. In four years, Hawke had forgotten that Varric had even known her first name. The tone of worry in his voice shot her heart up into her throat, and it was all she could do to plaster a tight smile on her face in her _I’ve got this all under control_ expression. Unfortunately, it didn’t do the reassuring job she’d thought it would. Varric shook his head, sighed, and reach out to grip her elbow.

“Don’t do any stupid shit, okay? It’s not heroic if you die in the middle of saving us all.”

Her free hand came up to gently take Varric’s hand in hers, and squeezed it. “I promise, Varric.”

* * *

What had he even been expecting, Varric mused afterward. Delilah Hawke was the queen— no, the damn _empress_ of Stupid Heroic Shit. He could only be thankful that some of the dueling tips Isabela had given Hawke over the years were actually a little bit useful in keeping her alive. That, and those long human legs of her were practically instrumental in Delilah’s general strategy of “run around just out of arm's reach shooting arrows.” Varric knew his leather gloves would have permanent creases from where he’d clenched his fists so tight out of fear, and watching Hawke trying to win a duel against the fucking _Arishok_ with a blighted _bow_ had probably given him a head start on the early grey hairs coming his way.

He just had to be grateful that it hadn’t been _worse_. Hawke held herself upright right up until she shuffled out of there as the Champion of Kirkwall, and Varric hadn’t needed to look back into the Keep to see the dripping path of red that trailed after Hawke. Aveline, being bigger and closer to Hawke, caught her as she fell, but Varric was the one immediately barking directions to Fenris and few of the payrolled urchins in the crowd that had gathered.

“Pike, use Hawke’s cellar to get to Blondie in Darktown. If he’s not in his clinic then start a city wide search for him. Broody, you handle carrying her back to the estate. Red, I’m assuming you’ve got to sort out these nobles now that their lives aren’t in danger. I’ll go ahead to warn Bohdan and get her room ready.” Stunned silence rang in the air after his outburst, but a sharp “ _Well?_ ” jolted the onlookers into action.

Once Hawke had been situated and Blondie summoned and all of their ragtag group forced out to the foyer to “give her some space,” Varric found himself leaning on the marble columns one more time.

“I don’t know if domesticated stone still counts as the Stone,” he mumbled, “but… give her strength. Please.”

Varric made sure that everyone else went home as the sun sunk lower and lower over the rooftops; Fenris with an exasperated reminder than he and Aveline lived hardly a stone’s throw from the estate and could check on Hawke _after_ some sleep, and Isabela with an offer to use his own room since she’d sold hers in her rushed escape. The pirate gave him a funny look at that, resigned and amused both at once, but he brushed it off. Whatever Rivaini’s problem was, it could wait for Hawke to wake up.

Anders insisted on taking the chair in the library so that he could be close in case something happened, and Varric peaked into Hawke’s room before settling into her guest room. He almost wished that he hadn’t: sunkissed skin had turned ashy and some of the blood had caked in her hair. Thankfully, whatever Anders had done put her in a deep sleep, and her face looked more at ease while she was unconscious than it did in life.

In the space of a few heartbeats, Varric had to tear himself away from the doorway or risk his heart overruling his head and camping out on Hawke’s bedroom floor.  _That’s very creepy, and not at all healthy anyway. You can’t take care of her if you’re falling asleep on your feet, Tethras. Pull yourself together_.

Over the course of the next four days, Varric insisted that he tended to Hawke while Anders faced the swarm of people at the clinic recovering from the Qunari attempt at hostile takeover. The aforementioned emergency was likely all that kept Anders from arguing against the idea, but as long as Varric didn’t have to hear that there wasn’t anything he could realistically do for Hawke medically speaking when she woke up, he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

On the fifth day, Delilah woke up, and since it was during Blondie’s once-a-day checkups, Varric didn’t have to hear a gloating remark that he’d had to send for a “qualified professional” at the first sign of trouble because the mage was already present.

“She’s conscious enough to have started asking for you already,” Anders told him when he came out of her room. The tired circles under his eyes underlined the crooked humor in his smile. “She said she got my hairstyle confused for yours. Can you believe that?”

If Hawke’s mind had been on Varric even half as much as his had been on her, then he definitely could. He restrained himself until Blondie had actually left the house, and then he burst through Hawke’s door as if he’d run all the way from the Hanged Man to see her. She’d been staring lazily at a book in her lap, but her head immediately jerked up and a grin grew on her face at the sight of him.

“I guess I broke my promise, didn’t I?” Delilah said sheepishly, gesturing to her bandaged torso with one hand.

Varric only blinked for a moment, clear relief still painted on his face, until his familiar crooked grin won out. “I guess you did. I suppose I’ll just have to trust that the _Champion_ knew what she was doing the whole time,” he declared, one hand theatrically placed over his heart in mock-betrayal.

“Don’t tell me that what Meredith said was an actual title, please,” groaned Hawke, “I get enough of that passive-aggressive noble nonsense by just living in Hightown.”

“Sorry, Hawke, you’re a respectable public figure, now,” Varric teased.

“Like _hell_ I am. Get over here, Smoothtalker,” insisted Delilah. Raising her arms, she opened and closed her hands like a grabby infant, but her smile stole any protest Varric might’ve voiced, so he approached the bed and gingerly rested his arms around Hawke’s torso. In contrast, she clung to him, her arms digging into his shoulders and laying her head on his collarbone.

Varric’s heartbeat was a tick too fast to be called steady, but he was right here and loyal and very warm, so maybe Delilah was paying closer attention to what it felt like to just breathe while pressed up to him and therefore missed the words he mumbled into her hair: “Like I was ever going to go anywhere else, sweetheart.”


	3. Must Have Done Something Right - An Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from the song of the same name by Relient K (It was either that or "Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do" but I've already used a Huey Lewis song).  
> Not quite into Act III proper yet, but I hope it's sweet & fluffy enough to tide you over until the Angst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't not involve the Anniversary talk, btw, why have I never heard any of the other authors invoke this sweet, sweet opportunity for fluff?

Hawke dropped by the Hanged Man with a soft knock on his door and her pleading mabari eyes on display. Her and Daisy, no one could say no to those bottle-green eyes of theirs. They made a dwarf forget that “a quick run of the Coast” meant sand and cliffs and ambushes every five meters. The words “anything for you, Hawke” were on the tip of his tongue, but Varric swallowed them back after a stab of panic. 

_ Watch yourself, Tethras. Don’t start reaching for the unattainable, _ he chided.

And Hawke, for all of her Fereldan farmgirl practicality and her Kirkwaller resourcefulness, was exactly that. Anders and Fenris could puppy-eye Delilah all their days, but not once had their fearless leader spared either a second romantic glance. Despite the embraces and smiles and laughs that Hawke shared with Isabela and Merrill, Varric had yet to hear of Hawke entering either of their welcoming arms, either. 

“I’m sorry again, Varric,” she said, but her eyes laughed as they trudged through the warm sand. “You looked busy when I poked my head in. Should I be expecting a new Tethras serial on the shelves of Hightown?”

Isabela looked up from her efforts to make Fenris blush with a mischievous gleam in her eye. “I’ve certainly heard a great deal of quill scratching through those thin walls. Spill, Varric, spill!”

Varric deflected, “There’s nothing to apologise for, Hawke.” There really wasn’t: the parchments layered on his desk were all scribbled out. He had toyed with the idea of giving Donnen Brennicovick a new partner, originally modelled off Aveline to attempt getting back in the Guard-Captain’s good graces, but after the twelfth description turned into purple prose about “Fereldan wheat hair” or “eyes deep and dangerous as Sundermount’s forests,” he’d given up. And after Delilah’s flustered deflections a few weeks prior, Varric had tried to put the first draft of  The Tale of the Champion away, but the urge to write about Hawke was tough to ignore.

“But you hate the Wounded Coast,” Delilah persisted, narrowing her eyes at him. Something like a smirk played about the corner of her mouth, and Varric’s gaze tried to linger on it rather than start using his brain to think of a reply.

“I’d be a fool not to come, Waffles. You are an excellent font of inspiration.” Varric hoped that it came out sounding casual, and Hawke only chuckled in that pleased, low, full-chest laugh of hers. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been a font of inspiration before. Is that better than I muse, I wonder?” She pondered with a laugh. From his angle, Varric could see a pink flush setting on Delilah’s cheeks, and smirked. 

_ Only Delilah would become Champion of Kirkwall with a quip at the ready, but blush at the notion of being truly inspirational, _ he thought fondly.

* * *

Delilah certainly didn’t feel very inspirational nowadays, not even when she woke up to the sight of a depiction of her face in granite from her window. That view normally made her want to crawl right back into bed anyway, and avoid having to answer to “Champion”. Trying to de-escalate Meredith and Orsino’s fights—sorry,  _ public disagreements _ —was exhausting, and for all that the Grand Cleric claimed that she stood in the middle, she was astoundingly unhelpful on that front.

The days that she wasn’t constantly exhausted were days that Delilah considered Maker-sent miracles, but they usually had more to do with how much time she spent in Varric’s company. He would never bring out the new title for anything other than a joke, and the more that he made it sound like a joke, the less it weighed on her mind. Not to mention that Varric could brighten any gloomy day of hers with a quip and a smile, even if it took a little longer for her shoulders to relax  nowadays.

Delilah knew that she was lucky,  _ truly _ lucky, to be able to spend so much of her time near Varric. Not only was his door always open and Bianca ready for a fight, but his societal standing was such that he was her only friend eligible to accompany her to the awful nobility parties that she couldn’t escape. While Delilah logically knew that it was more about the Merchants Guild than her and that with a word from the Champion any of her friends could likely attend Hightown’s parties, she was grateful for just one person who could see her in a dress and in armor and still think of her only as Delilah Hawke and nothing more or less.

It’s during one of the lulls—the stretches between dust-ups and becoming the nobility’s favorite errand runner, when she has time to visit her friends and unwind with them—that a faded memory comes to Delilah. She could blame Aveline if she wanted to, as she was the source of both the original memory and Delilah recollecting it two years down the road, but seeing as how Aveline didn’t know about it at all, Delilah decided to let her have her peace.

_ Bronze, because it shines like the sun, _ her mind whispered.  _ Arrows, because they are sharp and brilliant and dangerous, just like him. _

Delilah finished the rough sketch of her idea before she even realized that she had begun. A plate of bronze, stylized like a quiver of arrows, seemed completely impractical and not at all thoughtful, but perhaps it could function as a wall-hanging like her family crest? In her daydreaming she had included some design on the quiver, a heart made to look as if it had been embroidered on. At the sharp point of the cartoon heart, a thin line had been traced just inside the heart’s boundary, and it bore a close resemblance to a highly stylized capital V, but Delilah would deny it until her dying day. Or at least until she and Varric would be able to laugh about it someday.

* * *

_ I have to stop beginning conversations this way, _ thought Varric. His low table beside the fireplace in his rooms was starring far too often in the conversations between him and Hawke, especially when the two of them had over-indulged for the occasion. Varric had downed a few cups for courage, because even with Delilah, honesty was a frightening sonofabitch, but he knew that Hawke had drunk even less than that.

“Hawke,” he began, then cut himself off. “It’s a little awkward, but…”

Delilah grinned so wide that the little wrinkles by her eyes made an appearance, damn it, and it was almost too adorable for his poor heart to bear. “You know I’ll listen to whatever you have to say, Varric,” she replied.

He almost had to bite back a groan, because he was such a lucky dwarf and Maker, did he know it. “Maker, I hate it when you’re—“  _ too good for me _ “—reasonable. Call me a filthy nug-licker once in a while, for pity’s sake!”

Delilah chuckled, a sweet sound that began low in her throat until it escaped and rang like a bell. He was so proud that he had been the one to coax that sound for the most put-upon woman in Kirkwall that he almost forgot what he’d been trying to say.

“Look, Hawke, I just want to say that it’s been an honor knowing you,” Varric finished lamely. It hadn’t quite been what he wanted to say, but sometimes his silver tongue turned into lead around her. He’d learned to live with it, since keeping the sappy thoughts safe inside his head was better than letting them out, no matter how pretty he tried to make them sound.  _ Unattainable _ .

The slap of her hands against the table startled him, and she met his gaze with a serious furrow between her brows. That was the Champion’s wild protective ferocity that hardened those green eyes, and sometimes that look on Delilah scared Varric half to death. “Varric? Nothing’s wrong, is there? You’re not dying of a disease or something, are you? I should get Anders to check—“

Varric took her hands before she could half-rise out of her seat. “No, Waffles, it’s nothing like that. Didn’t I say before that you’d never have to worry about me? It’s six years to the day since I first saw you, dragging your tail out of Bartrand’s office with Sunshine on your heels. That’s all I meant.”

Hawke melted back to her chair with ease, although she looked a little melancholy at the mention of Bethany. “Six years? I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun,” drawled Delilah, and grinned her sharpest, most roguish smile. It lightened the mood some, but the tightness around her eyes betrayed the slightest unease.

“I think you’re the only one who could ever call a life like this ‘fun,’ Hawke,” Varric said through his quiet laughter, “but I can’t say I regret one second that I’ve spent with you.”

Delilah’s face lit up like a candle in the Chantry, and her lips turned up while pressing tightly together, like she was trying to hold in a laugh. Or at least, Varric thought so, until her hand came up to rub at her eyes, and he realized that it wasn’t just the fire that made her eyes look soft. Before he could think better of it, he cupped her cheek with his hand, and ran a thumb over her sharp cheekbone, waiting to catch a stray tear. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Hawke beat him to the punch.

“I really should’ve gotten you an anniversary present, but I don’t think I can compare with the wordsmith of the century over here,” she said. “That’s probably the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me, Vee.”

He held her close, because it was all he could do to keep the rest of his pretty words for her from spilling out of him like a waterfall. He’d had just enough honesty and emotional vulnerability for one night, thank you very much. Varric was lucky that Hawke had dressed down before coming down to the Hanged Man: the Champion’s armor had far, far too many belts and buckles for his liking, but in Hawke’s comparatively simple house-wear under one leather jacket, it was easy for the two of them to fall right into Varric’s bed fully clothed and without a thought of letting each other go.


	4. Love Isn’t Always On Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from "Hold The Line" by Toto
> 
> Welcome To The Angsty Pining Chapter. (The doubt! The letters! The fact that this 2k chapter was 2 months off schedule! I hope you enjoy it anyway)

Somewhere along the line, it had been decided (probably by Varric) that if Delilah ever needed a speedy way out of Kirkwall, Isabela was a straight shot to freedom. Unfortunately, that plan hinged on the idea that Delilah could return to the city at some point soon after when the coast was clear, and that living on the _Siren’s Call II_ would be a temporary situation.

About a month after leaving Kirkwall, Delilah had a bad case of cabin fever that even the sight of the horizon couldn’t cure. Or perhaps, not quite cabin fever, but homesickness. Hawke had never stayed anywhere long enough to really feel at home anyplace except Kirkwall, which is why she thought it took her so long to identify that feeling.

 _Though there wasn’t much home left in the end,_ she admitted to herself.

 

While the main battle had ravaged the Gallows, it was Hightown that really looked like a battlefield as she, Varric, and Fenris trudged through the rubble. Delilah’s hand was still curled around her bow, the muscles cramped from how tightly she’d held her weapon while both determined and terrified.

Upon seeing the rubble of the Chantry, Hawke’s knees gave out from under her. Flecks of gold flashed in the rubble, and chunks of half-melted wax had seeped into the cracks between cobblestones. The massive explosion had to have been visible for miles, but the sight itself was like trying to imagine Isabela without her necklaces or Merrill without her vallaslin: seeming impossible, and more than disturbing to contemplate.

Varric’s hand wrapped around her upper arm, and like magic her vise-grip on her bow evaporated. The wooden clatter on the stones sounded empty and hollow, and almost brought Delilah to tears. Wonderful, splendid, brilliant Varric took one look at her face and knew just what to do.

“I’ll take care of Hawke, Broody,” Varric told Fenris, “You go on and get your stuff together. Meet us at the docks later, alright?”

Fenris, for once in his life, looked almost fragile to Hawke, but nodded firmly and turned away from them and toward the street where his mansion sat.

Hawke turned slightly as well, to face the doorway of the Hawke-Amell Estate, and her heart fell from begin lodged in her throat to sinking right through to her knees. Delilah’s gaze looked unseeing at the dilapidated ruin of her mother’s childhood home, the drafty marble house that had slowly been becoming a home instead of  a mausoleum. The building could be described as “still standing” if Sundermount could be described as “an unusually large hill.” The doorway had slouched to the left like a drunkard, and most of the windows had shattered. Delilah had no doubt that the rubble continued in much the same way inside the house.

“Bela surely has a few spare outfits, this isn’t necessary,” Hawke muttered.

Varric looked her in the face, and the uncommon serious look in his warm eyes almost brought Delilah to tears on top of everything else. He squeezed her hands and asked, “You are gonna want your stuff, Waffles. What do you want me to get? Because trust me, ocean voyages are the worst and Rivani will be too happy about being on the sea to remember that you’ve only done that shit once.”

Her tongue turned to lead and became trapped in her throat, so Delilah threw her arms around Varric’s shoulders rather than reply with actual words. He couldn’t hide his wince at the way her armor prodded at him, but Delilah’s emotions rushed out of her too quickly for her to dwell on that twinge of guilt for very long.

 

Swearing for the fifth time in as many minutes, Varric clenched his white-knuckle grip on the rail of the boat and pressed his head up against the flat wood with his eyes glued shut. Sea travel was definitely a Chantry torture method, and if the waves kept up like this, Varric wasn’t sure that he could keep his mouth shut about Hawke. Technically, he wouldn’t shut up about her, but he prided himself for spinning a week-long tale while giving away almost nothing at all.

Not that Varric had much to give away at this point. Rivaini and Delilah had been at sea barely two weeks, and while Hawke might’ve considered jumping ship already, Bela was more than prepared to keep Hawke away from the mainland--and Chantry eyes and ears--for as long as need be. That knowledge, that Delilah was safe and (at the very least) not suffering, was the only thing keeping Varric from jumping off his own boat.

 _Though it doesn’t stop me from missing her terribly,_ whispered one corner of his mind.

 

With Delilah shaking and sobbing in his arms, Varric sprang into action immediately. One arm awkwardly reached around to her back, resting just between her shoulder blades, steadying her and providing a soothing pressure. The other hand brushed her loose hair from out of her eyes, delicately tracing the line of her brow. A slow, shuddering breath seemed to bring Hawke back to herself, and Varric gently angled her head up to look her in the eyes. 

Five heavy heart beats passed while Delilah’s green gaze was level with Varric’s. She moved slowly, imperceptibly, and Varric hardly noticed how close they were before Delilah’s eyes fluttered closed. The faintest brush of her lips pushed her steadily onward while Varric could only steady himself against the shiver rolling down his spine. His shock was rooted half in disbelief and half in wondering awe that of all the endings possible, Delilah was choosing _this_.

Hawke’s kiss was searing, the slow release of a passion long in the making. Delilah’s kiss was sweet, gentle and yearning and every swooning, flowery metaphor ever written. She kissed like she would drown without it, like she wasn’t sure if it was something allowed. One of her hands travelled to the nape of Varric’s neck, pulling herself closer. That movement broke the spell on Varric, and he reciprocated by cupping Hawke’s jaw in his hand and pulling his arm around her waist those last few inches closer. Delilah mirrored the movement, clutching at Varric’s coat to eliminate any last distance between them.

The kiss broke as Delilah swayed a little, and the depths of her eyes looked dazed when she opened them again. Varric took the first shaky step backward, and watched as Delilah shook her head, sending her stray hair whipping around her.

After clearing her throat, Delilah sounded almost like Merrill when she spoke, “Sorry, I should just go get my own things, shouldn’t I? I mean, I’ve got a few paperwork things I ought to hand off to you but… My clothes, my weapons, some sentimental things… I’ll just go get those now, shall I?”

Varric watched her pick her way around the rubble and duck under the doorway to the estate. His heart pounded in his ears while he hoped against hope that this wasn’t some adrenaline-fueled misunderstanding. His brain argued that his real life wasn’t _Swords and Shields_ , but his heart skipped three beats when Delilah glanced back at him through the doorway.

 

The _tap, tap, tap_ of her fingernails against the brown glass bottle was a delightful accompaniment to Bela’s warbling some peppy sea shanty in the room next to hers. Delilah splayed on the large, firm bed and remembered how she had too often usurped Varric’s bed after a night of drinking. She wasn’t drunk tonight, but her thoughts were maudlin enough that it was hard to tell the difference.

For about the fourth time that evening, Delilah unwrapped the short missive from where she’d wrapped it around the bottleneck and re-read the scrawling words that waited for her there.

_My dearest Waffles,_

_I hope Aunty Riva is showing you a good time in Wycome. I always thought you’d enjoy the city, though I’d planned to be there with you every step of the way, and it pains me to be away from your side._

_You’ll be pleased to hear that our business matters in Kirkwall have all been wrapped up. Even Worthy met his deadline, much to my surprise. Your design didn’t spare a detail, and the finished product was picture-perfect. Your hawkeye might find some flaw in it, but the brilliance in it shines clearly as it hangs on my wall._

_My convoy just landed on Fereldan soil. We haven’t even reached the Frostbacks yet, but I fear my fingers will be like creaky door hinges if we’re here much longer. You always liked my leather duster, but now I’m wearing it for more than style. How did you grow up here again?_

_All my love and safe wishes,_

_Vee_

Delilah smiled faintly at the words. The first news to reach her and Isabela upon docking in Wycome was the explosion at the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Receiving Varric’s letter after a full day of worrying was like a breath of fresh air. The saccharine turns of phrase were presumably to throw off any Chantry spy reading his mail, but it warmed Delilah’s face to remember that impulsive, comfort-seeking kiss on the night she left Kirkwall.

Even more surprising was Varric’s mention of that damn wall hanging; she’d forgotten that her silly little paper doodle was in the portfolio she handed off to him. Delilah had expected Varric to have laughed, but not to have commissioned Worthy for the damn thing. The bit about “hanging on my wall” must have meant that he stowed it in the Hanged Man for safe keeping, which Delilah thought fitting. The room there was significant for all the times that they whiled away the nights together, despite that those times were more platonic than she would have liked.

It wasn’t as if she knew how Varric felt on the matter, either. Delilah frowned, and turned to curl on her side, hugging the bottle and the letter to her chest. If she asked, whatever inscrutable, magnanimous answer he would give would only be sparing her blindly obvious feelings. The most vulnerable Delilah had ever seen Varric be was around the issues of Bethany, his family, and Bianca.

The memory, five years old and blurry around the edges, resurfaced with the force of a sword sliding through her abdomen. Varric standing just close enough to the docks to watch the love of his life to get on a ship. Delilah crouching just out of sight to watch the emotions cross over his face when he thought no one could see. He looked genuinely sorrowful to see Bianca go, but there was something relieved about the set of his shoulders, for once free of the crossbow’s weight pulling him down closer to the ground.

 _A man doesn’t go around reminding himself of somebody if he’s said all he needs to say to her, after all_ , Delilah thought to herself. She knew it was a petty thought, but she felt entitled to it. She had lost a home, a friend, and any possible chance at world peace in the past few days. She could act like a Champion in the morning, but tonight, she was due for a good wallowing with some good wine. 

 

Varric missed the days when he only needed a courier and a pen to get a message to Hawke. Kirkwall’s working kids bit less than Nightingale’s feathered friends, for one thing. Licking his wounds, he retreated from the rookery down towards the flickering lights of the deserted rotunda.

At least Skyhold wasn’t a drafty castle, he thought as he glanced at the stone walls as he walked. Delilah had always been meaning to get the walls of the estate fixed for the same reason, but she never got around to it before the city and the house fell apart. 

She hadn’t held up too well after Blondie’s little light show either, emotionally speaking. Varric was prepared to write that kiss off as simple shock on Hawke’s part if she said she wasn’t interested, no matter how much he felt for her.  _ You fall too hard, Varric, you always did. _ He was asking enough of Hawke just to come to Skyhold.

Varric shook his head as he closed the door to his room behind him. Now that the Inquisition was safer than ever, he had more down time than ever. As a result, Delilah was on his mind for every minute that it wasn’t on something else, and sometimes even then. He looked across the room to where the moonlight fell through the window to hit the wall; the brass quiver and its arrows glinted in the soft lighting. 

“A man doesn’t keep reminding himself of somebody if he’s said all he needs to say to her, after all,” he murmured with a fond glance at the wall.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you guys want a chapter with the ramifications of the Well Shit mission? I’m not averse to writing it, but I feel it’s been done to death. This had started out as a oneshot with only the first chapter, but I’m so happy that I’m close to finishing it and the feedback has been very encouraging! Thank you all so much!


	5. As If Our Love Were New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Schmoop! Requited Feelings! My (late) birthday present to myself is finishing this beautiful yet difficult piece of work (The Well Shit Mission may appear as a one shot when I feel like I've done it justice) Thank you to everyone who stuck around to see this to the end!
> 
> Title from "Someday Out Of The Blue" by Elton John because the Road To El Dorado from Dreamworks heavily influenced my childhood.

If the hike up the Frostbacks hadn’t already exhausted Delilah, the sight of Skyhold would have taken her breath away. She squeezed her knees together partly to jolt herself upright and partly to urge the horse under her to move forward. The mustang had been a gift from Isabela, though the “gift” was more likely stolen merchandise than not. Bela hadn’t missed the opportunity to make a joke about looking the gift horse in its mouth, which Delilah took to mean that all was well with her. For a horse with Rivaini blood, Altivo had borne Hawke over the cold and wet Fereldan ground admirably, and she patted the creature’s golden mane reassuringly as they approached the gates to the castle.

The wind blew against the dark hood pulled over Hawke’s head, and a quick shake dislodged the fabric entirely as she entered into the guardhouse. Stray blonde hairs fell into her eyes and Delilah shook her head to dislodge them, before realizing the resemblance between her and Altivo in hair color. _Isabela absolutely did that on purpose_ , she thought with a grin.

“Declare yourself, serah,” demanded the guard, surprisingly stern for how young she looked, with doe brown eyes and a figure more like a sapling than a woman.

“Guardsman Brennen of Kirkwall. I wrote to Varric Tethras that I was coming, he should be expecting me,” answered Delilah. The story held a kernel of truth; she had sent Varric a reply to his last letter, and Aveline had once admitted to thinking Hawke was Brennen in the dim light of the Hanged Man on a few occasions, and it wasn’t as if anyone in Skyhold could prove her lie.

The guard relaxed, a brief smile appearing on her face. “Serah Tethras is out with the Inquisitor presently, but the party is expected back within in the week, Serah Brennen. Horsemaster Dennet can see to your horse, but you’ll have to see to Lady Montilyet about being assigned a room.”

“I’ll be sure to do that, thank you, Serah.” Delilah jerkily dismounted and cautiously lead the horse through the miniature city that had sprung up in Skyhold’s lowest courtyard. Orlesian and Fereldan voices murmured together and created an entirely foreign babble that caught Delilah off guard. She exhaled in a rush as she emerged from the other side of the crowd, and patted Altivo’s mane once more, this time to reassure herself.

Thankfully, handing the horse off to Dennet held no hidden complication, and Delilah was eventually left on her own to discover Skyhold. Strolling aimlessly lead her toward the higher courtyard, where the sight stopped Hawke in her tracks.

One hand gripped her bow before fully processing what she saw: a fighting ring, inside of which a hulking Qunari with the largest horns she’d ever seen was swinging an axe recklessly after an incredibly agile elven archer. The elf leapt in the air and spun, kicking the Qunari in the jaw below his eyepatch before firing three arrows from midair and landing like a cat. The arrows were clearly meant to miss: they sank into the ground just inches away from the Qunari’s feet. The blonde archer laughed aloud, and the Qunari playfully ruffled her hair.

Delilah forcibly relaxed, lowering her hand from her bow and slouching her shoulders. The long scar along her side throbbed as she remembered a similar attack she attempted against the Arishok. _Varric was right when he said the Inquisition takes all sorts_ , she thought. Maybe she wouldn’t have to carry the title Champion around very much here if there were competent warriors like the blonde elf and the one-eyed Qunari.

“Hey, Feathers, you look a bit lost. Need some help?” A voice rumbled like far off thunder behind her, and startled her out of her deep thought.

Delilah stiffened, thought he’d recognized her as the Champion, but as she tilted her head back to meet the Qunari’s eye, she realized that he’d referred to the quiver of arrows perched on her shoulder. Forcing a laugh, Delilah took a nervous step back.

“A little, I admit. Don’t suppose you’d know where I’d find Lady Montilyet?”

He huffed a little laugh and slowly shook his head. “You’re trying to get a room, right? You’re not gonna have much luck; she’s been stuck in her office all day, working on something big. You’ll have more luck ambushing her at dinner, if you don’t mind looking a little rude.”

“I think I can be diplomatic when I need to, but thanks for the tip,” replied Delilah. “What do they call you, anyway?”

“The Iron Bull, leader of the Bull’s Chargers. You?”

“Guardsman Brennen, of Kirkwall,” she lied. Her heartbeat spiked when Iron Bull raised an eyebrow.

“Didn’t feel safe wearing armor with Kirkwall emblems on it while wading through the Hinterlands, then?”

Delilah glanced down at her armor, mismatched in places and very worn. Her pack, heavy with her Champion’s armor and personal effects, wrapped in miscellaneous clothing to look innocent, pulled harder on her shoulder as she shifted uneasily. “You could say that, yeah.”

She stumbled under the impact of Bull’s broad hand on her shoulder. “Then let's get you a chair and a drink after your long trip, what do you say?”

Delilah followed his gaze toward a stout two-story building; over the doorway hung a sign declaring it The Herald’s Rest. Even from across the courtyard, she could hear the babble of conversation spilling through the open doorway. The sudden, visceral contrast to the Hanged Man prompted a nervous laugh to burst forth, and Delilah stepped back from Bull.

“Thank you for the offer, but maybe another time,” demurred Delilah.

“Another time,” agreed Bull.

Delilah bowed her head low before turning on her heel and climbing the stairs toward the main hall. She held in the urge to look backward, but it was hard to ignore the feeling of his eye drilling a hole in the back of her head. To escape the discomfort, she pushed the wide double doors open with little hesitation.

The quiet bustle of Skyhold’s main hall sent her back to her memories of the Viscount's Keep. Various nobles and servants cast her poorly concealed glances in her brazen entrance, and Delilah fought the learned reflex of squaring her shoulders and tilting her chin up. Guardsmen, even ones from Kirkwall, couldn’t walk around like nobles. Fenris had once compared Delilah’s fluency of body language to the ability of a lizard in Seheron that changed its skin to blend in with its surroundings. At the time, Delilah disagreed, feeling out of place among both Hightown’s vanities and Lowtown’s vagabonds, but she conceded the point as she stepped away from the crowd in a sheepish manner.

She sought shelter in a crevice between a fairly sized wooden table and a nearby chimney, content to simply lean against the wall and observe. Her eyes roved over the papers stacked in messy piles on the table, only mildly curious until a familiar word in a familiar scrawling hand caught her eye. _Delilah._ The seven letters peeked out from under various other papers, and her curious reached its limit. Hawke ignored the faint tremor of her hand as she pulled the sheet of paper from the sea of parchment and laid it out flat on the table.

_Delilah,_

_I woke up with the sunlight glaring at me, which was my own fault; I should have found a less bothersome spot for that design of yours. I don’t plan on moving it, though. It reminds me that you’re still alive, and that I’ll see you again, maybe even sometime soon._

_Even without it, I’d be thinking of you all the time. I could write off what happened when you left as just emotional turmoil, but I want this to work too much for that. Maybe that’s why I sent the letter calling you to Skyhold: I’m too selfish to keep you away from the Inquisition when I’m in it. Even if we never talk about the kiss again, I can’t stand the thought that we may never meet again. I want my best friend back, dammit, and I want to know if we can have something more._

_Bela would kill a man to read those words: actual, genuine, vulnerable emotion from Varric Tethras, author of horrible smut and a couple of adequate crime novels. You’d be surprised too, maybe. Of the two of us, you’re more open with your emotions, even the vulnerable ones. Or, at least, you were with me. I loved that when you turned to me first.  It made me feel wanted._

_I love you, Delilah Hawke._

The letter ended there abruptly, and Delilah leaned heavily on the table in shock. None of Varric’s letters in the past months held even a hint of that much feeling, only terse sentences written as if he were in a rush. Delilah had thought that she ought to put their kiss behind her, but now she knew, with concrete evidence, how Varric felt. She barely avoided holding the letter up to her chest like an infatuated teenager, but she couldn’t hold back the slightly dopey smile blooming across her face.

A low creak echoed through the hall, and Delilah’s head jerked up to see the wide doors opening inward. The handle of a long warhammer was the first thing her eyes recognized, sticking out from behind a well-armored dwarf with bobbed brown hair, messy from travel. The dwarf squared her shoulders, just as Delilah had before, and moved confidently down the hall, and in doing so, revealed the figure hidden behind her.

The light from those immense windows caught the gold tones in his hair, and Delilah had to remind herself to keep breathing. The familiar sight of the open shirt, the faint scars, even the peek of Bianca over one leather-clad shoulder, swept her up in the homesickness that had faded months before. The weight of the past months—almost a whole year—returned and her knees felt weak; the same way they did after a long night’s walk back to Hightown, when the sight of home enticed Delilah to crumple on the doorstep, rest for a few minutes because she was tired enough that just the vision of home was enough to make her feel safe enough to do so.

She raised her voice to call out to him, and the widening of his eyes made her smile.

Varric tensed as his eyes took in the view that welcomed him to Skyhold. If it wasn’t for the pinch of his boots, he’d think that he was only daydreaming. Delilah Hawke, shining and smiling and looking none worse than he last saw her, stood there looking like the past five years hadn’t happened, mismatched armor and innocent smiles and all. He could feel Skies glancing between the two of them pointedly. Much as he appreciated her canny and strategic brain for keeping their battles quick and mostly clean, he did not need her picking up this particular dropped shoe and making noise about it.

Thankfully, when he turned to Cadash, she only shook her head and waved her hand before turning away to retreat into Josephine’s office. Sparing no time and not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, Varric turned on his heel and walked around the table to Hawke.

“Long time, no see, Varric,” she greeted. Her hands clasped behind her back stood at odds with the warmth in her voice and her smile. He didn’t trust himself to speak, and instead tilted his head toward the door leading deeper into the castle. Quickly they ducked through and turned down the first abandoned hallway.

“Maker, Delilah, I missed you,” he blurted.

“I noticed, believe me,” Delilah replied, “That ambushed halla look was very satisfying to witness.” She captured his hand in her own and laced their fingers together. “I missed you too,” she murmured, and simply stared at their hands before smiling and swinging them gently back and forth.

“You could’ve warned me about the giant, axe-swinging Qunari, though,” chastised Delilah.

Varric winced, but squeezed Hawke’s hand reassuringly. “I should have, you’re right. Hopefully he’ll keep his trap shut about you being here, at least until tomorrow.”

“I doubt most Qunari would recognize the Champion just from the description “blonde human archer from Kirkwall.” I’m not that bad an actor, am I?”  

“Unfortunately, Waffles, that’s not all there is to it. Tiny isn’t like the regiment of Qunari that landed in Kirkwall. He’s a lot quicker on the uptake than most, for one thing, and way less cryptic for another. Very forthright on the fact that he’s a Ben Hassarath spy, for example.”

Delilah blinked rapidly. “Well, shit. Can’t say I saw that one coming.” She snorted a laugh and added, “Though I guess you could say the same about Fenris sticking around with us for so long. Or Merrill. I think Aveline was maybe the only one of us with a semblance of normality in her life.”

As they walked, they talked, Varric about the characters that the Inquisitor had picked up and Delilah about what latest news came from their friends and Kirkwall. To Delilah they might as well have been walking in circles, but halfway through the story of recruiting a Grey Warden that Varric described as both too cookie-cutter and too suspicious, she got the feeling that Varric had a destination in mind for her. She didn’t mind; her pack was growing heavier by the minute, and the way Varric occasionally pulled her along by their clasped hands was endearing.

After turning a corner, Varric slowed to a meandering pace before he stopped in front of a plain door. He reached out and pushed the door open with a flourish.

“You can stash your stuff here until Ruffles gives you a room of your own,” he offered as he ushered Delilah through the doorway.

The space was tiny compared to the suite in the Hanged Man, packed almost to bursting with a bed, a case of drawers, and a desk strewn with both quills and bolts alike. A window into the courtyard punctured the bare expanse of one wall. A glint in Hawke’s peripheral drew her attention to the wall that faced the bed.

Delilah realized that Worthy had taken a few liberties with his execution of her drawing: the sheet of brass sloped toward a point, the way that all the Amell family crest hangings had done. That tweak disguised or emphasised the heart design and its hidden V inside the quiver, depending on the angle she looked from. The arrows stuck out farther slightly, and the space between them alluded to a gate made of arrows. What surprised Delilah the most, however, was that Varric had actually brought the thing all the way from Kirkwall.

“What can I say? It brightens up the room considerably,” remarked Varric.

She hadn’t realized that she’d spoken aloud, but laughed it off. “Looks like quite a cozy setup you’ve got, Vee. The Inquisition certainly suits you.” With trickle of dread, Delilah felt her throat begin to ache and her eyes well up. Warmth enveloped her hands and she looked down to see Varric’s thumb caress the back of her hand.

“What you see is me making do, Waffles. Kirkwall… it really wasn’t the same without you,” he said, quietly, like it was a secret he didn’t want getting out. The quiet, softer side of Varric was usually a sign of sadness, but the way his eyes shone when Delilah met his gaze spoke volumes of joy.

Hawke inhaled a shaky breath and exhaled into a hesitant smile. It felt like tensing up for a leap of faith, but it wasn’t quite. She already had his answer, but it was time for her to give hers. “I guess we both were pretty homesick this year, weren’t we? Because you… My home is where you are, Varric.”

One of his hands reached up to cup her jaw, and Delilah tilted her head to press her forehead to Varric’s, closing her eyes with the force of her happiness. She felt her heart expanding in her chest and was getting drunk off the effect like it was a fine wine, and that was  _ before _ Varric kissed her.

Greedily she wrapped one arm securely around his shoulders and carded her hand through his hair, realizing dimly that it had gotten longer in their year apart. It was a gentler kiss than their first, but still Delilah poured everything into that press of lips. A thrill skated down her spine as Varric’s hand cradled her head, and the thought occurred to her that she’d never felt so warm or safe in her whole life.

As the parted for breath, Varric chuckled and murmured, “We took long enough getting here, didn’t we?”

Delilah didn’t have to ask for clarification. They had earned their happy ending, and weren’t about to give it up for anything.


End file.
